Considered to be one of the best films of 2015, Abluka (Frenzy) had its world premiere at the 72th Venice Film Festival and was deemed worthy of the Arca Cinemagiovani prize. Described by the festival's director Alberto Barbera as “A strong, harsh movie with an aspect of political allegory”, Frenzy starts with the story of Kadir, who is released on probation after twenty years in prison. In return for his release, Kadir starts to work as a snitch for the state in slums inhabited by political dissidents, while making a living as a garbage collector. In one of those neighborhoods, he runs into his brother Ahmet... And the narrative evolves, depicting layer after layer of the current Turkish political panorama. Let us lend an ear to the director Emin Alper on his film...
The only female character in Frenzy (Abluka) is Meral, a mysterious woman. Why did you feel the need to create a character like this?
Emin Alper: In order to turn Kadir’s world upside down. Recently out of prison, Kadir is trying to go back to normal life, and to establish stable relationships based on trust. In this search for stability, he also strives to strengthen his ties with his brother and family. On the other hand, we have Ali and Meral, Kadir’s only friends in the neighborhood—two people whom he can trust in this neighborhood surrounded with enemies from the inside and outside. Furthermore, he is also impressed by Meral’s charm. Ali and Meral’s shift to the ranks of suspects, even enemies, would turn Kadir’s world upside down. His brother Ahmet does not give him the warm welcome he expects, and he is unable to fulfill his dream of reuniting his family. This disappointment takes their toll on him, and make his relations with Meral very complicated. So Ali and Meral are two characters that are conceived to upend Kadir’s world.
Meral and Ali gradually turn into Kadir’s enemies. For the sake of his freedom, Kadir is obliged to turn into a snitch and is slowly overcome with suspicion. How did the characters of the two brothers, Kadir and Ahmet, appear in your process of writing?
He does not immediately categorize Meral as an enemy; he hesitates first. Kadir’s dream explains this in a sense. Maybe he wishes to save Meral. The characters’ journey was long. The first draft of the story featured a snitch who collected garbage, and a parallel story between Ahmet and the dog. Later, these two stories merged in my head. I had the idea of Ahmet turning in on himself with the dog and becoming paranoid, and also rendering his snitch brother paranoid.
You frequently cite literature among your inspirations. Apparently the character Ahmet is based on a story by Thomas Mann. What element in that story triggered the desire to write your own story?
I had read A Man and His Dog many years ago. It is the story of a miserable, insane person, mocked by everyone around him. He cannot connect with anyone except a stray dog. The story tells of how his relation with the dog becomes unhealthy. He goes so far as to maim the animal in order to prevent it from going out. A light bulb went off in my head: What would it be like if this character was also a paid killer of stray dogs? At that point, I started to build the story in the Turkish context. It turned into the story of a man abandoned by his wife, an event that damages his manhood, who then creates an intimate bond with a dog while hunting other dogs down.
There are strong parallels between Frenzy and the current state of things in Turkey. In an interview, you say that the Suruç massacre took place on the day you received an invitation for the Venice Film Festival. Hundreds of people lost their lives in the run up to the general elections in November, and the horrible events of those five months made everyone’s head spin. How did that tough period affect your relation with the film?
The ambiguity of the specific period of the events in the story is related to this pessimistic outlook. This is not an issue of the past. While conceptualizing this film, the fact that Turkey fails to resolve its problems urged me to make it ambiguous; it is not clear whether the story is in the past or future. Pessimism is implicit in the film. At any time, Turkey may fall into such a situation or even worse. Whenever you say “Things could not get any worse” they do. Of course there are events which inspire optimism; very surprising things happen from time to time. In general, however, especially at the moment, it is very hard to come across something that makes you smile. Nonetheless, despite this implicit pessimism of the film, we were not so gloomy during the shooting. During editing, in fact throughout June, the outlook was relatively sanguine. We were filled with hope after the June elections. In July, however, everything turned upside down. In line with the pessimism in the story, this country surprised us once again and presented us an even bleaker picture than we expected. A frenzy literally came into our lives with the eruption of war in summer. I did not expect that the concept of frenzy would become so real all of a sudden.
The name changed a lot, yet we had decided on Abluka (literally “blockade”) before July. The first name we had in mind was Cinnet (literally “mania”), and that’s where the English name Frenzy comes from. Finally, we decided on Abluka. The Suruç massacre took place three or four weeks later. Later, cities came under military blockade one after the other...
You describe the film’s atmosphere and the state of blockades it describes, as “apocalyptical.” What kind of a relation do you see between the deprivation and poverty you portray and the reality of blockade?
It is very ironic indeed. We described the film as dystopian and apocalyptic at the same time, but used only location shooting. When you think of a dystopian film in the Hollywood style, the budget would have to be huge. Yet since Turkey lives on the verge of dystopia, it naturally presents you with such locations. All we did was exaggerate this and emphasize it with small touches. All the weird places in the film—the bar, garbage market, neighborhood—are actual locations.
What struck you most when you first walked into these locations?
There was no parallel between what I conceptualized on the drawing board and the actual locations. What I had in mind was a more classical gecekondu neighborhood, or shantytown. In the past, the hills of the Balgat neighborhood of Ankara were full of such small houses. Yet that neighborhood is no more. Some neighborhoods like this still exist in İzmir. The atmosphere changed as soon as we stepped into the Şahintepe neighborhood of Halkalı, Istanbul, which is isolated from the rest of the town. Downtown Istanbul was sunny; when we went past Küçükçekmece, however, clouds covered the sky; it was dark and windy. We were very impressed as soon as we saw the neighborhood. I asked myself, “Was I impressed so much because of the sudden turn in the weather?” Then we went back a few more times in more clement weather. Interestingly enough the place really has a micro climate of its own, as we were told during the shooting. It is always two to three degrees colder than İstanbul. It rains there all the time, even when Istanbul is dry. This unique climate intensified the sense of isolation. Şahintepe is surrounded with high-rise buildings: the new apartment buildings of Başakşehir, blocks built by the Mass Housing Administration (TOKİ), skyscrapers. In a sense, the neighborhood is cut off from ‘civilization’ by motor ways, and constitutes the extreme edge of Istanbul. After some time, you really feel that Istanbul ends there. And of course people still use old stoves, and coal smoke covers the entire neighborhood. All these aspects struck me.
This is precisely the mentality criticized by the film: Viewing the entire issue from a security perspective and eradicating a part of the human or animal population that is seen as a threat to human security or the urban image. It is a cliché, but I will still say it: If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. This is a summary of Turkey’s recent history. As long as the state and its toolkit are authoritarian, it approaches all problems with the urge to annihilate. That is because the presence of other political perspectives would oblige it to share its power. Maybe the social struggles in Turkey are too weak. Across the world, when faced with staunch opposition, the powerful say “That is enough, our casualties are too high” and decide to share some of the power they hold. Maybe the things have not reached that point in Turkey. The society does not yet have this reflex of punishing those in power. In the end, it all depends on the society. Currently, society does not complain about seeing its leaders concentrate power in their hands. On the contrary, they encourage it. They do not fully comprehend how the concentration of power in the hands of the rulers will hurt themselves or their children over the long run.
There is something blurred about Kadir’s relation with Ahmet, maybe a touch of male competition. For instance, we do not know why Ahmet was abandoned by his wife. He is very young and has suicidal tendencies. And why does he kill dogs? What is the reason behind this ambiguity?
Yes, there are blurred aspects of the story. I do not like to clarify everything—the same was true in Beyond the Hill (Tepenin Ardı). There is a technical side to this. If you write a novel, you have to narrate in detail the events and characters. Cinema does not have similar instruments; if you try to do the same, it really looks out of place. What do you normally do to recount, say Ahmet’s or Kadir’s life? You should write dialogue; have explanatory dialogue... Well, that is the thing I detest most in a movie! In a chat Ahmet and Kadir would normally talk about completely different things, but you make them give information about their past! When you want to build a multi-layer movie with multiple characters, you have to strike a delicate balance. Certain things should be overt, but others should remain covert. One can more or less guess why Ahmet does this job—it’s for money. I prefer to place clues. For instance Coni (the dog) gets lost and then finds the way back home, only to get beaten up by Ahmet. In that scene I expect the viewer to ask “Hey, does this guy beat his wife?” Alternatively, his wife might have grown bored of him due to his reserved, taciturn nature. Basically, I do not like presenting explanations in a movie, and prefer to proceed with implications, small touches.
Do you think current day Turkish society is as paranoid as you depict it in the film?
Maybe not to such a degree, but our society is surely paranoid. We are number one in uncovering conspiracies! This does not always have to be a political conspiracy. The characters in this film live in a political atmosphere, and that politicizes the film. However, in Turkey, we always tend to view anything that happens to ourselves as a conspiracy by our friends.
There is no need for snitches in our society, because all neighbors double as voluntary snitches...
The snitch law has come into force. Anyone who denounces the member of an illegal organization receives money. This is very dangerous; people can put the finger on anyone, just to get money. On the other hand, a similar paranoid mechanism is in place to uncover the so-called parallel state; everyone suspects each other as a possible member of the parallel state. That’s how people build their political career. Politics is not the only source of paranoia. Mistrust has many sources in Turkey. We have all the obsessions of a self-enclosed society, trying to conduct everything in secret...
The film does not pitch revolutionary violence against state violence. The film takes revolutionary violence as a fact; it does not question or analyze it. It prefers to focus on the state and its allies. In this sense, it emphasizes the hollowness of the state’s discourse of national unity and fraternity, by pointing out how the state’s securitization policies destroy individuals. Even fraternity is impossible in such an atmosphere, as suggested by Fatih Özgüven. One reason to keep the identity of the leftist organization so ambiguous was to make the story universal. That’s why I conceptualized the story without a specific period and location. This story could be set in Peru, Africa, Turkey or Palestine. The leftist organization in the film remains obscure on purpose. To me, the film is about a state that attempts to stand firm by implementing securitization policies during a civil war, and its subjects. Indeed, I saw this come across in various festivals. Even in countries which do not have such a period of conflict in their recent history, say Japan, the audience could relate to the film. I can say that the film has managed to become universal in this sense. Naturally, as always, the film draws more interest in societies with intense conflict, just like Beyond the Hill. For instance, its screening rights were sold in the Balkans, in Belgrade. It will go on tour in ex-Yougoslavia. Its rights were sold in Greece, too.
Frenzy triggers one association after the other... Ahmet is taken for a terrorist and ‘captured dead’ in a house riddled with bullets. This brings to mind downtown Istanbul, the blockades in the Turkish provinces over the last six months, and the houses and lives taken by the police.
That is because history constantly repeats itself in Turkey. While planning the film, we drew some inspiration from the past and from our imaginations; but we were also surprised to see that we actually drew a lot of inspiration from the future, too. In fact, the future is a repetition of our past experiences in different versions. This is ironic for Turkey.
You are also an academic who conducts studies social struggles; what is the connection between your academic efforts and cinematographic work?
It certainly helps. Social science readings on social movements, armed struggles and methods developed by states in response have greatly expanded my knowledge on the issue. Otherwise, you would have to depart only from micro observations while telling a story. You try to envision what people may be thinking or imagining, what a character may be considering while taking this or that step. You place yourself in their shoes. It helps me a lot to test these ideas with macro level studies. Some studies on the issue go against all of our preconceptions and assumptions. In the run up to the elections, we tried to place ourselves in voters’ shoes and thought, “People will punish the government.” However, election results showed that people were thinking in a totally different way!
The image of a man holding a gun stands out in both of your motion pictures. On the other hand, there are many impressive scenes where men fall weak, become childish or are humiliated in Frenzy.
When you focus on political violence, the issue of masculinity and images of men holding guns inevitably come into the picture. In Turkey, the problem of masculinity always runs parallel to the problem of immaturity, of unending adolescence. Our main issue is adolescence. Men acting like adolescents make the matter at hand worse. They feel the need to constantly prove their manhood, are not at peace with themselves, so always feel the urge to smash things. From the president of Trabzonspor football club to numerous politicians, this condition of unending adolescence makes men insufferable. Therefore, the men in my films are child-like and act in stupid, pathetic ways.
